All-Optical Regeneration and Demultiplexing for 160-Gb/s Transmission Systems Using a NOLM-Based Three-Stage Scheme

An all-optical pulse regenerator suitable for 160-Gb/s transmission systems, including three stages based on nonlinear optical loop mirrors, is proposed. The idea of splitting the regeneration process in three different steps allows the use of easy and well-known ultrafast subsystems. This approach offers advantages in terms of maximum bit rate of the signals that can be regenerated. The significant signal improvement in terms of noise reduction, pulse reshaping, and jitter suppression introduced by the regenerator is experimentally evaluated. A Q-factor increase from 3.2 to 6.3 was measured for the eye diagram. Since the presented scheme can also be exploited as a regenerating demultiplexer, simultaneous regeneration and demultiplexing functions are implemented for data signals up to 160 Gb/s.